Threshold
by Urbia
Summary: Situated high above the streets, Akabane and Kagami work their love-hate relationship into the flesh.


**Threshold**

An eroding beam held a lean figure cloaked in black above the sprawling network of filthy streets. Akabane roosted on an airy limbo between Heaven and Hell, fingertips anchoring his hat to his head lest the wind decide to include it among the eddies of swirling litter. He crafted a dainty smirk and watched night's descent with eager expectation. His eyes selectively darted at certain points in space-in a manner a heron may, stalking fish across calm waters, searching for the treacherous ripple of shadow that would reveal, through the otherwise mirror-like surface, its prey. Sunset saturated the sky. The time was nigh.  


He always arrived a little late--_fashionably_. Colour spectrums spanned from various points under the wrong atmospheric conditions. Tiny prisms rotated just beyond an androgynous outline, dropping shy of a silhouette, by definition, for the shape was not yet opaque. Akabane waited. As though the air itself began to crystallize around him, the jeweled contours multiplied, loosely surrounding him on four sides. He inhaled deeply, filling himself with the glistening particles they shed like powdered snow off a windblown car. A solid weight pressed into his back, warm, feeling almost frictionless in its suggestion of nakedness. Akabane let the gritty current run like hot sand from his body's core to the palm of his right hand, where he combined it into a single shard, sharp and deadly like a miniature javelin. Reaching backwards past his hip, he ran a shallow upward stroke across a long canvass, grazing Kagami from flank to shoulder.  


A moan of appreciation eased into his ear, a delicate nip simultaneously marking the nape of his neck. Slender fingers had parted Akabane's long black hair from the back, sweeping the strands to hang down over his collarbone. "Should I be offended by your chronic tardiness?" Akabane sedately asked his invisible plaything, blindly exploring Kagami's navel with the tip of his makeshift spear. "You are fortunate I am so patient with such matters."  


"Mmm I have my own agenda to follow. Let's leave it at that. I came, didn't I?"  


Akabane watched the silvery decoys dissipate into planes of solid glass, around, above, and below them. Nobody would notice that the tip of the beam had crept into obscurity. 

"Frosted, tinted, or complete invisibility?" Kagami's voice contained an obvious grin. He already knew the answer.  


"Modesty for tonight. The moon is full."  


"Invisibility it is."  


"We've disappeared?"  


"Nobody knows we're here."  


Akabane lowered the shard and turned around, lightly elbowing his way to autonomy. Kagami floated a few inches off the edge of the beam, now gloriously revealed, regarding Jackal smugly despite the blood-red line etched down his side ending in lazy droplets. The mirror-user boasted a skillful knack of wrapping the russet sunset over every dip and angle of his limber body, producing flattering shadows and velvet-soft contours. He was a photographer's dream. "So, come on," he cooed, eyes smoldering. His wind-whipped bangs could not disguise the provocation nursed in those duskily shadowed sockets.  


They met swiftly as though in combat, symbolic in their silky caresses that sought tender spots of utmost vulnerability. Akabane enjoyed the advantage of full attire, pleased with his power in this game, while Kagami voiced no real protest at the other's dominance. He could certainly pretend, though. His lukewarm glares and troublesome twists prompted the doubling of Akabane's efforts, until Kagami sprawled along the beam on his back, his helpless position arranged by the other's forceful dragging and pinning. When the struggles waned, Akabane raked order through his tossled hair and glanced down into the streets, mentally reminding himself to fetch his fallen hat at a later time. He fastidiously removed a glove with his teeth, then dealt a stinging blow across Kagami's face with it.  


Kagami winced, and he laughed.  


After a moment's pause, lips dormant of expression, Akabane lay the edge of the diamond shard against Kagami's throat, one of his unspoken challenges issued only when feeling a shade crueler than usual: scream, and forfeit the use of one's sound box until fully healed. Pale eyes darting to Akabane, Kagami pressed his lips together and raised a sleek brow. The hat, perhaps, he ought to have left alone. Jackal dipped his head and nipped Kagami's chest hard enough to coax a gasp out of him. Before his victim found the opportunity to exhale, Akabane persisted mercilessly, scoring the nails of his glove-less hand down Kagami's unwounded side, as though to match the pain flaring through the other. Jackal's tongue slid over various erogenous zones. Kagami held his breath. There was no fooling the masochist after his varied experiences with Akabane; one moan out of him and there will follow the most intense agony imaginable, more than even he could ever hope to bear. He may very well simply pass out before the scream escapes his vocals-- thus giving Akabane an excuse to try this game again another day, at the expense of Kagami's pride. Akabane parted Kagami's thighs with his elbow and his hand, widening the gap as he pushed his bent limb towards his groin. And then he cupped him, fingers delving through his entrance. Warm lips took his tip and Kagami threw his head back. Rhythmic finger thrusts fell in sync with every bob and pull, forking pleasure through the pinned and conquered blonde. The erratic glinting of his surrounding mirrors indicated his failing resolve; rather than acting as the perfect barriers they were meant to be, his shields began to quiver, one of them suffering a central crack. A discrepancy in Akabane's lip pressure informed Kagami that he had noticed-- smiling. Kagami's tensed his abdomen muscles and arched slowly, dreading the need to breathe, dreading the possibility that one of his exhalations would carry with it, into the world, and into the ears of his tormenter, sound. He shut his eyes. And almost choked. A heave for breath turned into a whimper. The whimper bled into the precursors of a moan--  


Within himself, Kagami felt the light, razor-sharp pinpricks of scalpel tips unsheathing for preparation. He screamed, and Akabane would never know whether it was fear or pleasure that wrenched such a shrill arc of sound from his secretive erotic partner, for at that moment a salty torrent hit the back of his throat. Akabane drew out, leaving no damage, and sat up, quietly dabbing the corners of his mouth with his glove, as though it were a napkin cleaning the residual smudges from a seven-course meal at the most upscale restaurant in existence. He sighed. Therein floated a vague mixture of disappointment and amusement. "You lost."  


Panting, Kagami wondered whether the iridescent sparkles belonged to the light reflecting off his mirrors or his own hallucinations. " I know. I graciously accept my defeat." He smirked, closed his eyes, and waited for the consequences-for the shard to rip a neck wound nasty enough to make his rush to recovery one of life and death, for Akabane to meet him again on this beam when he found out Kagami lived, for this all to happen all over again another day, this twisted ritual of theirs.  


Wet lips pressed a ginger kiss against Kagami's jugular. The blonde opened his eyes without expression, but his heart pounded.  


"Just return the favour this time and we'll call it even." Akabane extended his hand, now primly gloved again, in offered assistance to lift Kagami from his back. Fingers encircled wrists, and the blonde head rose from the metal bar, long bangs swinging forwards over his face, weighed down with sweat. Kagami took Akabane's waistband in his fingers without hesitation.  


"Agreed."

  



End file.
